The Web3 community has thoughts on banks missing out on stablecoins and tokenized stocks. This and crypto IPOs, dominate Web3 thoughts of the past week.
Banks lobbying against stablecoins
“Banks are leaning on regulators because they want to protect their bottom line, but there’s no reason they should be the gatekeepers of stablecoins, which are a crypto innovation first and foremost. The GENIUS Act legitimizes this innovation and opens up new opportunities for consumers. Of course, this is disruptive to existing financial models, but disruption is how we get progress.
“Regardless of what traditional banks do now, they’re already behind the curve on stablecoins – Tether and Circle have dominated the space for years. Instead of trying to compete, they’re better off focusing on improving their core offerings – traditional savings accounts. That’s how they protect themselves from deposit flight.
“Crypto finally brings consumers more choice and better financial opportunities. This shouldn’t be stifled just because it disrupts the status quo. There’s a place in the financial system for both banks and crypto, but the incumbents are the ones that need to adapt.”
– Charles Wayn, co-founder Galxe
“The fact that banks are lobbying against stablecoin yield doesn’t surprise me at all. They see it as a direct threat, because it is. If you can park money in a stablecoin, earn real yield on-chain, and move it around instantly without waiting three days for ACH, why would you leave it sitting in a checking account that pays you basically nothing? Deposit flight is their nightmare scenario.
“From my side, building infrastructure for institutions, I actually get where regulators are coming from, too. You don’t want some random offshore outfit offering 20% “risk-free” yields with zero disclosures. That ends badly; we’ve seen it.
“But the answer isn’t to ban yield altogether. That just drives it underground or offshore, which makes the risk way worse. The real play is to build the rails so stablecoin yield looks and feels like a compliant money market fund. If a pension fund or a Fortune 500 treasury desk wants to hold tokenized treasuries and earn yield, there should be an infrastructure layer that makes that safe, auditable, and boring in the best way. That’s what spurs real adoption.”
– Blake Jeong, co-CEO of IOST
“Banks are right to flag that yield-bearing stablecoins could shift deposits away from traditional institutions, but this is not necessarily a threat to credit creation. It is a sign that the market is demanding more efficient, transparent, and accessible ways to earn yield on digital dollars.
“In reality, most yield-bearing stablecoins do not eliminate credit; they repackage it, moving capital from bank deposits into on-chain lending markets, tokenized treasuries, or structured credit, where the same economic activity takes place on different rails. The key is ensuring transparency through proof of reserves and real-time reporting, embedding risk controls like caps and insurance mechanisms, and fostering integration with custodians, brokers, and banks themselves.
“Ultimately, yield-bearing stablecoins are not about displacing banks but about upgrading financial infrastructure, giving consumers yield and efficiency while preserving systemic stability.”
– Sid Sridhar, founder and CEO of BIMA Labs
Banks are also missing the tokenized stock boat
“Skepticism from traditional finance and regulators around tokenized stocks largely stems from a perception of high risk. While concerns are understandable, tokenized assets are often misunderstood. The priority should not be about simply clamping down on innovation, but rather about finding the right balance: protecting investors while enabling progress.
“Tokenized stocks have the potential to make investing more inclusive by lowering barriers to entry. For many, buying a single share at $500 may be out of reach. By fractionating access, tokenized stocks open new opportunities for individuals across different regions and income levels, people who otherwise struggle with the complexity or cost of traditional investing.
“But access is about more than just smaller ticket sizes. Blockchain rails also expand who can participate at all, enabling cross-border investment, 24/7 market availability, and transparent record-keeping for people historically excluded from traditional financial infrastructure.
This is about empowerment. Investing should not be reserved for a select few, it should be accessible to everyone. By working together, regulators, industry, and innovators can ensure that the future of investing is both safe and inclusive.”
– Abdul Rafay Gadit, co-founder of ZIGChain
“Some industry commentators love to dunk on tokenized stocks, arguing that nobody’s trading them, volumes are thin etc. But honestly, early adoption always looks small until the pipes are built.
“Right now, tokenized equities are basically spot products with training wheels. The real breakthrough comes when lending and derivatives infrastructure matures: when you can short, hedge, or lever up the same way you do in traditional markets, but on-chain.
“That’s when institutions care, because risk management is everything. Skepticism about today’s usage ignores the fact that tomorrow’s value isn’t spot trading, it’s a full financial stack built natively around tokenized assets.”
– Hedy Wang, CEO and co-founder of Block Street
How crypto firms filing for IPOs can deal with regulatory scrutiny
“Seeing companies like Figure and Gemini joining Coinbase and Circle in going public is fantastic news. These IPO filings signal regulatory readiness and demonstrate that their technology stacks can protect user data at public market standards.
“As these firms navigate stricter compliance requirements, they are also called to strengthen their privacy and security frameworks. This presents a timely opportunity to elevate privacy and security through ZK proofs, which are gaining traction in both blockchain and Web2 applications.
“ZK proofs offer practical advantages beyond securing information. They enable proof of collateral for lending multi-chain assets across ecosystems and support proof-of-identity mechanisms during wallet onboarding. ZK technology can be integrated throughout the entire stack to improve both security and user experience, creating a key differentiation tool in an increasingly crowded market.”
– Shiv Shankar, CEO of Boundless
Rate cuts and what kind of correction we might see across Bitcoin and Ethereum
“Rate cuts change the whole setup. On one hand, cheaper liquidity fuels risk-taking, and that’s partly why whales just snapped up $456 million in Ethereum from BitGo and Galaxy Digital, per Arkham data. It looks like classic rotation, take profits on Bitcoin strength, pile into ETH for more upside. But corrections still hit, even in bullish backdrops. Ethereum could easily see a sharp pullback, 15% or so, as traders de-risk before the next leg higher. Long term, the bigger story is institutions circling. For them, ETH only works if it builds RWA-native infrastructure with compliance, scalability, and adoption baked in. That’s where the next wave sticks.”
– Blake Jeong, co-CEO of IOST
“Rate cuts always sound bullish on paper, cheaper money, easier leverage, all that. But with Bitcoin and Ethereum, it’s not that simple. Lower rates usually mean risk assets pump, sure, but crypto’s already priced in a lot of that optimism. So the correction we might see is less about doom and more about cooling off the overextension. People also forget that easy money means that tokens with no reason to exist catch a bid too. That froth builds fast, then clears just as fast.”
– Chris Anderson, CEO of ByteNova AI
Hyperliquid’s trading volume surpasses Robinhood
“Hyperliquid surpassing Robinhood in trading volume demonstrates that people want speed, flexibility, and markets that don’t freeze the second volatility spikes. Permissionless margin trading and lending unlock exactly that. Any token can become collateral, not just the handful that an exchange decides to bless.
‘That kind of openness scares regulators and incumbents, but it’s the only way to avoid choke points where a single platform dictates what’s tradable. Hyperliquid proves appetite exists for deeper, riskier, faster markets, and the next logical step is agents coordinating those trades across tokens and protocols, turning every asset into something that can work, borrow, and earn without waiting for permission.”
– Sky, founder of LIKWID
“Hyperliquid’s rise underscores the difference between platforms built by crypto natives versus those trying to pivot in from the traditional world. Jeff Wu and the team have been in the trenches since 2018, and that DNA shows in both execution and product-market fit.
“Robinhood, by contrast, is a legacy fintech attempting to graft crypto onto a TradFi framework. Hyperliquid is crypto-first — and it shows in the numbers. In many ways, Hyperliquid represents the tip of the spear for Agentic Finance. The endgame isn’t just higher trading volumes, but helping regular people grow comfortable with managing their own wealth and value. Hyperliquid makes this much easier as a DEX that’s intuitive and performant.
“Through agent-driven systems, we will actually see this accelerate even further.”
– Dylan Dewdney, co-founder and CEO of Kuvi.ai
“Hyperliquid surpassing Robinhood in trading volume isn’t just another DeFi milestone; it’s a fundamental shift in how financial infrastructure operates. We’re now witnessing the Uber moment for financial services, where a decentralized protocol built by a small team of 11 is outcompeting a multi-billion-dollar centralized platform that went through years of regulatory approval, raised hundreds of millions, and employs thousands.
“This demonstrates that decentralized protocols don’t just offer alternative features; they enable entirely new economic models where value flows to users and builders rather than being extracted by platform owners. When a permissionless, on-chain derivatives exchange can match the volume of America’s most popular retail trading app, it signals that the era of centralized financial intermediaries extracting rent from every transaction is ending. The future of finance is being built by decentralized protocols, over centralized platforms.”
– Syed Hussain, founder and CEO of SHIZA (Shared Human Intellect Zonal Agents)